WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Friday called the botched execution of an Oklahoma inmate "deeply troubling" and announced that he's going to ask the attorney general to analyze problems surrounding the application of the death penalty in the United States.

In his first public comments on the case of convicted murderer Clayton Lockett, the president, who formerly taught constitutional law, expressed conflicting feelings about the death penalty and said Americans need to "ask ourselves some difficult and profound questions around these issues."